Jón Baldvin Hannibalsson, the former Foreign Minister of Iceland, in an interview with Taavi Minnik on the failure of Western leadership to establish a sustainable global order.
- When did you hear the news of the Coup d´état in Moscow in August 1991? How did you react?
- In the news, like everybody else. Two days later I was on my way to a NATO foreign ministers´meeting in Brussels. At that time, noone knew yet who was in charge in the Kremlin. NATO-secretary general, Manfred Woerner, was asked to contact Yeltsin directly through his secret channels. An hour later, Woerner reported back to us.
- Yeltsin had assured him that the coup had failed. The democratic forces within Russia were now in charge. He, Boris Yeltsin, was now the leader of the democratic forces. He appealed to the NATO foreign ministers assembled in Brussels to give all the support they could muster for the democratic forces.